SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 9 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

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SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Instruction: Identify the assumptions that must hold for the statement to be valid, then choose the correct option. Statement: Despite the unpredictability of future technologies, regulatory frameworks must evolve to preempt ethical crises. Assumptions: I. Unregulated technological growth can cause ethical dilemmas. II. Ethical standards are often retrofitted to existing technology. III. Regulatory systems can always accurately predict technological outcomes.

(a)Only I and II are implicit
(b)Only I is implicit
(c)All are implicit
(d)Only II and III are implicit

Answer

Why

Correct — A.
Rule: an assumption is what the speaker takes for granted without saying it.

I: calling for rules to preempt ethical crises takes for granted that unregulated technology can cause them. Implicit.

II: frameworks that must evolve to act in advance are, by implication, acting after the fact now, fitting ethics to technology already built. Implicit.

III: 'always accurately predict' contradicts the statement's own unpredictability. Not implicit.

I and II → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Only I is implicit — Only I leaves out II. The demand that frameworks evolve to act in advance presumes that ethics is now fitted after the technology arrives, which is what II says.
(c)
All are implicit — All are implicit takes in III, which says regulators can always predict outcomes. The statement opens by conceding that future technology is unpredictable.
(d)
Only II and III are implicit — II and III keeps III, the assumption the statement contradicts with its own unpredictability, and drops I, which the call for regulation needs.

Concept

An assumption is the unstated belief a statement rests on. Test each one by negation: if denying it leaves the statement pointless, it is implicit.

Deny I, and there is nothing for regulation to preempt. Deny II, and there is no reason frameworks must evolve. Deny III, and the statement still stands, since it already admits that technology is unpredictable.

II is the contestable one. It holds only if 'must evolve to preempt' is read as saying that ethics now trails technology, and that is the reading the key takes.

Key facts

An assumption is unstated but necessary for the statement to make sense.
The negation test: deny the assumption, and if the statement loses its point, the assumption is implicit.
III fails because 'always accurately predict' contradicts the statement's own 'unpredictability'.

Study next

Statement and conclusion items, which ask what follows rather than what is presumedCourse-of-action items built on policy statementsSpotting an assumption that overstates a hedged statement

Common traps

Rejecting II because the statement never mentions retrofitting, when an assumption is unstated by definition
Accepting III because regulating the future sounds like predicting it

The same instruction with a 'Despite …' statement appears at 15 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.10 on electric-vehicle subsidies, also keyed Only I and II, with the claim about carbon emissions left out.

14 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.5 on automation keys Only I and II too, rejecting III because it claims job displacement is temporary and will be reversed.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Problem Solving — all 123 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.